Trump

Normally I tend to shy away from the line, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Personally seeing something isn’t the best reason for belief, honestly, once you have an adequate understanding of how the human brain operates. Let’s just say that if I saw a ghost or an alien spaceship, it wouldn’t necessarily result in me believing in ghosts and/or alien spaceships. A preponderance of evidence is much more important to my acceptance of somethings existence than personal experience. I hike/backpack quite often, and yes, I have seen and heard several things that could have possibly been sasquatchi. (Fight the man! Help make “Sasquatchi” the proper plural form of “Sasquatch.” Fuck “Sasquatches.” No, not literally. Well, I guess if you find one, if that is what you are into, and the Sasquatch consents, then take my comment as literally as you wish. Who am I to stand in the way of consenting human/Sasquatch love? Just make sure the Sasquatch consents, Bobo.) They also could have been bears, bucks during the rut, or a myriad amount of animals so extensive that I refuse to list them all. I could go around saying that I saw or heard Bigfoot, but reality and the preponderance of evidence suggest one of the other possible explanations are exponentially more likely. Was that thing I saw in Wildwood Cemetery a ghost, a demon, or light reflecting from a car’s headlights? Is that an alien spaceship, or am I misinterpreting something in the sky? I can come up with a nice sized list of reasons to doubt what you personally witness before even bringing hallucinations into the discussion. So yeah, I’ll accept/believe something not when I see it, but when I see a preponderance of evidence.

All of that being said, there are still a few things that I truly will only believe when I see it. This election season seems to be the genesis of most of them. One of them, that one of the two major political parties in the United States would actually nominate Biggest Loser contestant( I know it is the wrong reality show, but tell me it doesn’t fit), horrific hairstyle model, wannabe dictator, bankruptcy claiming con artist, xenophobic misogynist, fascism tinged populist who claims to have way more money than he actually has, who espoused fairly run of the mill liberal political positions up until a couple years ago Donald “Not Joking” Trump as their Presidential candidate, was witnessed yesterday when, anticlimactically, enough unbound delegates to put him over the top expressed their intentions to vote for Donald “The Death of Serious Politics” Trump, thereby saving any of the remaining states and territories the horrible distinction of being the one that clinched him the nomination. Yep, I admit it completely. Even with my low opinion of the Republican base, I would have bet a seriously large amount of cash against him. I mean, sure, I knew the racism and xenophobia, along with his faux populist message was going to play well, sadly, among the white working class. But I was positive a combination of evangelical Christians along side horrified moderates (well….those that still exist in the GOP) and embarrassed movement conservatives would find some way to stop his campaign. I mean, I don’t believe in a religious test for office to be sure, but Evangelicals sure as hell do, and Trump is about as Christian as I am. No, I take that back. I could fake it much better than he could since I’ve read the Bible and studied apologetics. There is no way they believed his religious pandering, especially with Ted Cruz, a man so wrapped in the faith that the Westboro Baptist Church thought he should tone it down a bit (I kid….Or do I?), running against him for comparison.

I was wrong. So were quite a few Evangelical candidates. All those years the GOP spent pounding the Bible while carefully playing their racist dog whistles and it turns out the equation for victory was simply exchanging the Bible pounding for half-assed pandering and the dog whistle for outright bigotry. Who knew?

“That’s okay,” I thought. Even if Donald “Goodbye, America’s Reputation” Trump manages to use insanely unrealistic campaign promises along with the bigotry the GOP’s been seeding with the “Southern Strategy” for decades now to somehow win the nomination, all that means is at least 4 more years with a Democratic President. I mean, you heard these high ranking members of the GOP during the campaign. Trump’s middle name may as well be “Not Qualified for the Office of President.” Fox News used the first debate and Megyn Kelly to try and take him down. The National Review dedicated a whole issue to #NeverTrump. The last GOP nominee was practically begging someone, anyone, else to get in the race. The base may make him the nominee, but the elite members of the party realized that not only would a Trump presidency be a national nightmare, but even being associated with him would be an asterisk after their names in the history book. Sure, it would cost them the White House, but they could come back stronger in 2020 and they would have the added admiration from independents and moderates for standing up against Donald “Not Qualified for the Office of President” Trump.

Did you see Megyn Kelly’s softball interview with Donald “She had blood coming out of her…..wherever” Trump? She was harder on the Duggar’s. Anyone else having fun watching people who insisted he wasn’t anywhere near qualified for the Presidency endorse him? For as much of a jackass as he is, I really thought more of Chris Christie, and yet there he was, the first to cross the line. I mean sure, there are a few members of the GOP who are more concerned with their personal integrity than victory. Last I checked George Will was still writing anti-Trump columns. I don’t see endorsements coming anytime soon from Romney or anyone named Bush. Senator Ben Sasse has drawn the ire of his own state’s GOP leadership with his anti-Trump stance. The communications chair of the Young Republican National Federation, Katrina Elaine Jorgensen, resigned over his nomination. And the Governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, skipped out on Trump’s rally in her state the other day, and was vocal about skipping the convention until she realized her position as chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association kind of obligates her to be in attendance. I doubt Glenn Beck is planning on jumping on the Trump train, and I believe at least one influential right wing news site is still #NeverTrump.

Other than that? Watch them fall in line. Anyone really expect Paul Ryan isn’t going to endorse Donald “nice tits, no brain” Trump? A bit of advice for all the #NeverTrumpers now stampeding their way to his campaign? Don’t neglect the balls. If you do, he will fire you. And don’t forget to toss the salad, although I would skip that on days he pandered to Hispanics by eating taco salad.

So what’s left this year for me to believe when I see?

I’ll only believe their are enough white men in this country to elect Donald “The Man Who Single-Handedly Caused the Entire World to Reevaluate Their Foreign and Economic Policies Towards the United States” Trump when I see …… Okay, scratch this one. Thanks to 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting machines, I will never believe this one, no matter what happens. (Are you stunned at the thought of 100% unverifiable voting machines? Yeah, I was as well. Go to The Brad Blog and follow his reporting. Our elections are so shady they make corrupt dictators look honest. )

I’ll only believe people in the United States are fucking stupid enough to either outright elect Trump, or come close enough that our rotten election system, through honest errors or malicious hacking, is able to tilt the count in his favor when I see the final election results, with 100% reporting.

I’ll believe the Justice Department is going to indict Hillary Clinton over those emails when I see her do the perp walk live on the network news.

And finally, and just as unlikely as the two above, I will believe Bernie Sanders is enough of a selfish fuck to give Donald “Pocahontas” Trump the priceless Christmas in June present of a televised debate when the only realistic chance Sanders has of winning the Democratic nomination is the previously mentioned extremely unlikely indictment of HRC, resulting in the only possible beneficiary of such a debate being Donald “that low life” Trump as he commiserates with Bernie over how rigged the Democratic nominating system is as he actively courts Sanders supporters, all the while saving any negative thing Sanders says about HRC for future campaign ads, when I fucking see it on my television screen.

Sorry. I still have too much respect for Bernie to actually think he would go through with this horrid idea. I’ve been wrong before, and if I am, believe me, I will be back to tear into Mr. Sanders with all the vitriol I can muster, but until then, I’ll chalk it up to a joke gone awry.

Maybe Republicans should debate with Democrats during the primary season. Sanders floated that idea at the beginning of it all, and it is an interesting one to think about. That debate should definitely not be between one parties Presidential nominee and the other parties second place finisher.

No matter how much it could raise for charity.

I love politics. Love it. I’m addicted. It is just about all I read about. Politics and ASOIAF. Hell, half the reason I love ASOIAF so much is the political wrangling in the series. But this particular election is getting hard to watch, and therefore, hard to write about. My 80 year old mother, who largely ignores politics, is openly scared over this. This 4’11, 93lbs little old lady brought up Hitler in comparison during a conversation yesterday. I laughed and told her about Godwin’s Law, which made me think: Is Godwin’s Law harmful in some instances? If something really is Hitler like, then shouldn’t we be able to go with the comparison that makes the most sense without instantly losing the argument and being seen as a crank? I’m not saying that Trump wants to kill all the Muslims and Mexicans. He just wants to evict them from the country. Which is how Hitler started with the Jews, by the way. He didn’t start with gas chambers.

I am not saying that Trump could become a Hitler. The United States isn’t suffering under an unfair treaty imposed upon us after a war that killed an entire generation. We aren’t going to invade Canada. There are never going to be death camps gassing Muslims and Hispanics. In 2020, Trump is not going to declare martial law and put an end to free elections, declaring himself President for life, no matter how many right wing nut jobs were convinced Obama was going to do that by now.

I am saying, however, that there may be comparisons to be made and lessons to be learned that can only be discovered by scrapping Godwin’s Law for a period of time. Perhaps I just found something to write about.

All I know for sure is this: If you aren’t at all concerned about the wave of xenophobic bigotry and hate that Trump is currently riding, then you haven’t been paying attention.

About the Author

Described as "intelligent but self-destructive," Foster Disbelief spent his twenties furiously attempting to waste his potential in a haze of religion and heroin. Science and atheism allowed him to escape his twin addictions and he now spends his days attempting to make the most of his three remaining brain cells.